I debated about starting a thread until I was at the painting stage, but after finding so few showcase styled cab projects I figured I'd start a little early. More build pictures are on my website: http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/gauntlet

Background:I was the first caller on a Gauntlet Legends game in the huge showcase type cabinet for $250 on craigslist. I called the guy back and told him I would have to pass as I didn't have anyplace to put it, and would have to rent a truck to pick it up due to its size. The next day I woke up and realized that I should have just taken it completely apart if need be to fit it in our truck, even if it took several trips.

About a week later I saw all the guts of a Gauntlet Legends cab on craigslist. I called the seller, and it was the guy who ended up with the cabinet I passed on. Turns out he only wanted the cabinet, as he purchased a huge control panel from mameroom and an LCD monitor. He's turning the cabinet into a MAME cab. I picked up all the guts of the cabinet - 38" medium res monitor, complete control panel, game boards, power supply, fans, wiring harness and 2 backup hard drives. I paid him $225 so he still ended up with the better deal, but I think I did OK for what I got.

Scratch build begins:It took a while to decide what kind of cabinet to build. If you've seen the Atari/Midway cabinets you'll know that they're essentially a huge rectangular box with a control panel extension. The speakers are actually mounted inside the plastic control panel. The other type of showcase cab is more of a T shape with the speakers mounted to the sides of the monitor. I ended up going with a mixture of the two types, it's the T shape, but without speakers next to the monitor.

I got the dynamo showcase plans from jakobud's web site, but some of the measurements didn't quite add up right. The height of the monitor stand seemed to be 3 different sizes, depending on which diagram I looked at. It may be partly my fault, as I'm no expert on reading plans. I decided to use the plans as a guidline, but just wing it when it came down to the final measurements.

So far I've built the monitor stand and control panel stand, but neither has t molding or paint yet. The design I came up with will have the advantage of breaking down into 4 pieces - the monitor surround, the monitor stand, the control panel stand and the control panel.

I haven't decided what to do with the bottom of the cabinet. I should have used plywood for the base, but I used the same 3/4 inch particle board as the rest of the cab. I'm a little worried that leg levelers won't hold the weight without ripping out of the bottom. I'm thinking of either using 2 inch casters or nylon furniture sliders. I'll have to make sure the 2 inch casters don't raise the cabinet up too high, making the control panel uncomfortable.

Any comments are welcome! Pictures of the backside of any showcase monitor section would also be appreciated. I've got lots of pictures of the fronts of these styled cabs from ebay, but no shots of the back. The monitor surround will be the most difficult part to build due to the need for plexi and a way to hold it in place. My monitor chassis is just about level with the bottom of the monitor, so the dynamo plans for the back won't work.

Monitor stand: The stand has a removable shelf just below the level of the door. I notched the door and surrounding panels so the door will sit flush with the rest of the front when it's closed. You can also see the holes in the top panel, shelf and bottom extension that will allow wires to pass through.

Control panel stand: The stand has a cutout for a coin door, and a hole in the bottom extension (not shown) that matches up with the monitor stand to allow wires to pass through. I should have made a top for it like the monitor stand, for the control panel to bolt to. I'll probably have to do that.

Stands together: I haven't figured out how to bolt the two sections together. I should have hammered some t nuts into the backside of the monitor stand extension when I built it.

Paladin, did you get the wiring harness from the other cabinet? If not, let me know; I've got one from a GL dedicated stand-up here that's just collecting dust.

I've been MAMEing a dead GL dedicated here for, oh, about a year and a half now (gee, will I ever get finished?) and have a few bits that I've pulled out that may be useful. I'd have to dig through the box to refresh my memory on what they all are, but nothing got trashed while I worked on it.

And before someone flames me for MAMEing it... it was toast/gutted when I got it; no monitor, no boards, just the cabinet, CP, and wiring harness. I've kept all of the original artwork intact. Have the original CP too, sitting here next to my desk. Although I replaced the innards w/MAME, its a gorgeous cabinet and I didn't dear thrash that.

It does mean spending a chunk of change on a video adapter to be able to use the medium resolution monitor, but this thing is so huge I'll have to get rid of my current 25" MAME cabinet to make a place for it.

I've had other things that needed doing, so I wasn't able to get as much done since my last post. I've started construction of the monitor surround, but as of now it isn't glued together. I'm also starting to encounter some fitment issues that are taking up some time. I didn't notice that the monitor chassis isn't mounted in the center of the monitor when I started planning the surround. While I'm building the monitor surround I have to work on how to attatch it to the monitor stand.

From here on out there will be alot of fiddling around with how things line up. Most of the big parts are done but I still have alot of work to do. I have to test fit the Gauntlet Legends boardset into the cabinet, make sure all wires are long enough, cut holes for the intake fan and power supply, figure out what to do about feet/casters/leg levelers, finalize a way to mount the plexi in front of the monitor, route for t molding make a marquee box and prime/paint.

I've got the monitor surround built. I'm going to wait until the glue dries before I put the monitor inside to check fitment. I still have to finalize how to put the plexi in, and cut some holes for ventilation. I'd like to find some vents to put over the vent holes I'll cut. I'd like some that will allow air to flow out, but not let dust in. So far all I can find are louvered vents on marine websites. They're chrome plated brass and aren't cheap. I've thought about using a household heating vent cover on the back that I can remove in case I need access to the chassis.

I'm starting on the fitment of the electronics into the cabinet pieces. This is a bit slow going, as I have to carefully think of how to mount everything. The original cabinet had the metal PCB plate mounted horizontally, and I'm mounting mine vertically so everything will be mounted differently.

The monitor stand is pretty much ready for sanding, priming and painting. The monitor surround is nearly there as well, although I have to figure out how to hold the plexi in. The current plan is to use aluminum angle iron, mounted to the sides. I still haven't made the piece to connect the control panel to the control panel stand.

I also don't know what to do for feet. Right now I have some furniture sliders under each piece. I may just add a round piece of wood just larger than the furniture sliders, and just use the sliders.

Here are some pictures of the latest work:Monitor fits perfectly in the surround.Holes in the back for the power supply and intake fan.Game PCB plate mounted. Note the shelf has been notched for fitment and airflow.

Just like a home improvment project, this thing is taking twice as long as I thought it would. I keep finding more things that need to be done.

I've now got the control panel mounted to the stand. I have enough of the cabinet built that I could actually plug it all in and play, but I still want to get it painted before I do that for the first time. If I get this thing all put together and it doesn't fire up, I'm going to be seriously bummed!

I've finally finished the major construction. I've still got a few little things to do like the small rectangular pieces that will cover the joint between the control panel and monitor stand, buy and attach plexi and fix up the coin door - but I'm finally painting!

At long last I'm at the painting stage. I chose a two color paint scheme based on another showcase project I found on this site. Unfortunately that one looks like it didn't ever get finished. I've got black and blue T-molding, and the blue should match the molding pretty close. There are a lot of dust particles in the picture. I had a window open in the garage to help the drying, but I think it was stirring up the dust in the garage that's left over from the construction.

I'm using Rustoleum satin black, and Valspar "Enchanted Navy" from Lowes. I thought Lowes would use some high tech color matching system, but the kid at the paint desk just took the molding over to the paint sample cards and picked a couple that seemed close.

The bottom of the monitor stand and the control panel stand have one coat of primer and one coat of paint. This is just to protect the wood. The inside of the monitor surround and monitor stand will just have one coat of primer and no color. I'm trying to get this thing done, and I don't want to spend the time to paint the parts that no one will see.

My info is too little & too late but Lowes has a paint sample eye/computer.....no need to involve the kid at the counter, its in the "general population".

For my first cab I bought 4 cans of textured fleck paint & let it cure for a few days, then using a roller I applied highgloss exterior "lamp post black". That was after several failed attempts at getting a smooth surface with other paint methods.

NOt that the fleck is smooth, but its was consistant in its texture & looked fancy....I think.

I'll need a friend to come over to help me get the monitor up on the stand. I've got 4 bolts and several wires that need to be lined up as the monitor is set up on the stand, I'm not looking forward to that step.

Getting close! I need to do the plexi, and the small covers that will hide where the two main parts connect to each other.

My friend came over yesterday and helped me get the monitor attached to the stand. It was definately a two person job, that thing weighs a ton. I gutted and sold my MAME cabinet this week also, so rather than hook up all the wires and power it on yesterday when I was exhausted I decided to wait until I could concentrate and make sure everything was hooked up right.

It works! I finally connected everything up and powered it on. I had a friend over, and we spent a couple hours playtesting. I found that I had swapped 2 switches on the control panel when cleaning, none of the lights in the control panel between the speakers are working even though I had already replaced one bad bulb, and there's some pincushion in the monitor.

I took a picture of the game, but there's a ton of reflections from the monitor plexi so it was hard to get a good photo. It makes it distracting when playing also. I don't know if the reflections are due to the curve to the plexi, or if it's something I've never noticed before because I've never had a pedestal style cab before. On smaller cabs your body blocks a lot of light from hitting the monitor, but with this style you're too far away to block.

So, if you had the means you wouldn't dedicate a cab solely to your favorite game? I used to play GL on a showcase in my arcade all the time. Hell, If I had the space I would dedicate a cab to one of my favs.

Nice work on your cab btw. Looks like an original PCB, is it? If so, how much did you pay for the board/hdd? Any plans to potentially convert it to Dark Legends? I seem to remember an arcade store on e-bay selling the roms /re-imaged hdd's for the DL conversions.

The original plan was to make it swappable between GL and MAME. I've got the Universal Video Converter to allow a PC to display on the med res monitor. I don't have the gpwiz49 interfaces (rumors of a new version on the ggg board). Now that it's together I don't know if I can fit a PC and GL both inside the cabinet. If I decase the PC and stick it on the back of the door panel it would work, but then removing the door would be a pain. I still have to look into it a bit more.

I've bought a 4GB compactflash card and an IDE/compactflash adapter to try and replace the hard drive with the flash memory. I haven't messed with it yet though, as I just got the game up and running. The ebay Dark Legacy upgrade is $75 for the 2 chips and a hard drive. I thought about emailing the seller to see if I could get it without the drive, as I should be able to make one from the MAME CHD file.

I paid $250 for the complete Gauntlet Legends electronics - monitor, PCB, HD (with 2 spares), complete control panel tub and complete wiring harness. I think I'm at around $400 for the parts to build the cab. That's about $650 for the complete setup - not including a couple new joysticks, the patttern cutting and T molding slot cutter router bits. Higher than I had planned, but as usual small things kept popping up that add to the cost.

I have to give credit to this site which inspired me: http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=6.0. After all the work getting the cabinet up and running, I'll need to take a break before I start figuring out what the next move is. I'm thinking Gauntlet Legends/MAME or Dreamcast/MAME.

Well, phase one is complete! The cabinet is done, and Gauntlet Legends plays great. There's still some pincusion in the monitor that the adjustment pot won't completely remove, but everything else works 100%.

The next phase is to decide what to do next. Current thinking is to sell the Gauntlet PCB set and install a PC and Dreamcast. I've got a universal video converter that will let me display VGA output on the medium resolution monitor. That way I could get a Dreamcast and VGA adapter to display the games on the monitor - but it leaves me not knowing how to get the dreamcast controllers to work with the cabs 49 way joysticks.

I could use a PC running NullDC for Dreamcast emulation, but I don't think any of my spare PC's have enough power. I'm still doing research.

The first picture was taken without flash to get a better view of the monitor. The rest were taken with flash.

Shizzle my nizzle man thats sweet. Wish you lived in El Paso, local vender has 8 Dynamo showcase cabs, complete, setting behind his warehouse collecting mold. I grabbed two since the wife said two is all I am allowed, but what a waste. Those cabs are in excellent condition too.

People in El Paso dont understand the value of a nice cab. We have two vendors here and on any given day these guys have dozens of cabs, in great shape setting on the curb for the trashman to pick up... Its sick....

Hey Paladin, whats up with that Tempest there? You close to that thing or you willing to get rid of it? Just wondering lol...

I have an extra nice showcase marguee sign that would go on the top real nice like if you want it. I do not have the glass for it though. You pay shipping and its yours...

Im going to do a Dragon's Lair/Space Ace conversion for my Showcase within the next year... Can't wait....